[plt-scheme] Re: PLT-Scheme object system (was re: Image Snip initialization)

> >     The Squeak situation is a bit different.  Squeak is a
> >     useful language as it stands, and the notion of a
> >     Smalltalk standard is much weaker than the notion of
> >     standard Scheme.
> 
> Do you think PLT Scheme is less useful than Squeak? Or closer to the  
> "standard" than Squeak?

     I think that Smalltalk-80 was more useful as a production
     language than vanilla Scheme, so Squeak as a reinvention
     of Smalltalk-80 was more useful than vanilla Scheme.  Kay
     wants the Squeak community to push beyond what is useful
     and comfortable to something more.  But it's hard to push
     hard past the comfort and utility of what one already has.
     That's not too say that the Squeak community doesn't do
     some cool stuff, but in some ways that are stuck with the
     local maximum that was Smalltalk 80.

     PLT Scheme pushes way beyond the core language, and the
     team seems willing to make really cool changes to the idea
     of Scheme if they are warranted.

> Technically speaking, RnRS is _not_ a standard; it's a language
> report that describes a family of programming languages or the
> core language. There actually is an ANSI/IEEE standard, but it
> is so old nobody pays attention anymore. --  

     I guess that's where the Smalltalk standard is, too.
     RnRS does seem to have more influence on the Scheme
     community than the Smalltalk standard does in its
     community.

---- Eugene